Health Pro is actually way more than that: it allows you to keep track and store a lot of data for many people, for example family members or a generic group of people (useful for a doctors to monitor a group of patients or for a sport coach to monitor their team’s athletes).

As usual, to get more insights about this great app, we asked the developer a few questions.

“Health Pro is a portable health management system designed exclusively for BlackBerry 10″

Where did the idea come from?
The idea came from my second job as an emergency room doctor. A major frustration when rapidly assessing patients is that many are unable to provide even the most basic information on their medical background. It wasn’t until one patient surprised me by displaying a list of her medications within an app that I decided to develop a more complete solution.

How long did it take to develop the app?
I was hoping to get the app finished within a month but it took five whole months. Brainstorming began with sketches on paper. The goals were clear. However many small design challenges arose throughout development and several additional features were added along the way.

Who are your ideal customers?
The app is ideally suited to anyone who wants to maintain health records on groups of individuals without losing mobility. From consumers like families and individuals, to prosumers like doctors, physiotherapists, coaches, and community nurses.

Why should customers buy your app?
Health Pro is probably one of the most complete medical record management apps in the world. In addition to storing multiple medical profiles, you can customize the app even further with charts, journal entries, notes, bookmarks, formulas, and attachments. There’s even a remote telemetry function where you can link a Fitbit account to each medical profile and monitor the health activity of multiple individuals simultaneously.

If you were looking for an app like this, look no further and get it now.

Together with this app, as usual, we are recommending a few other applications available on BlackBerry World:

Today I would like to tell you more about Jonah Lin, a developer who has been spending a lot of time developing apps for BlackBerry, evangelizing Chinese companies about the BlackBerry platform and maintaining a very active enterprise developer group in Shanghai.

Jonah, being both a developer Elite and Enterprise Developer Group manager, has been very busy in the past few years in order ensure the community he manages was aligned with the main goals of the company, even in a huge country like China.

For example, they put a lot of effort into maintaining a Chinese version of our developer website as well as helping local devs with BlackBerry World Payments through Paypal. Last but not least, they have been constantly in touch with the BlackBerry local teams in Hong Kong and Indonesia, trying to help whenever possible.

After countless meetups and lots of apps developed, he is certainly one of the dev group managers who understood where the company was heading and re-invented himself accordingly.

For example, since BlackBerry is not present in Shanghai, Jonah started getting many inquiries from local top companies about BlackBerry devices and BES.

“We see BlackBerry’s BES as a valuable and attractive platform to top international companies and BlackBerry’s unique brand and device design still get eyeballs.”

Jonah also took the decision, for his company, to stop mobile app development for the consumer market, since they started seeing a great opportunity in the enterprise market. They also started meeting with other enterprise devs in China, lending BlackBerry devices to allow them to test the apps being developed.

In addition to that, with the help from BlackBerry team in Hong Kong, Jonah and his dev group started selling BlackBerry devices to Chinese users and fans and also to a few local top companies. To date, in the consumer market, they sold more than 1000 devices to Chinese fans. Impressive, right?

In the enterprise market, he and his team successfully provided BlackBerry devices to an Oil Company in ShanDong province in China via an enterprise developer group member. They also made several orders for ta op international company in Shanghai via Yuying Mobile. Last but not least, they helped them to install and configure a brand new BES service.

Right now, Jonah and his enterprise developer group have a main strategy to support BlackBerry: serve the local enterprise market with device provisioning and BES support and device sales to local users and fans.

At the same time, they are very close to the Hong Kong team to verify opportunities to be involved in app projects for big enterprise customers in the region. They are ready to go!

Interested to know more about our Enterprise Developer Groups? Do you want to join one? Take a look here to find the one closest to you. If you are interested in starting a new one, instead, please fill this form and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

QuickPost allows you to post to multiple social networks at once, with a single click. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, BBM Channel and many more networks are now just one click away.

QuickPost co-founder is one of our BlackBerry Elites and we asked him a few questions to know more about this fantastic (and very popular!) application.

“QuickPost allows you to post messages and images across multiple accounts quickly and easily. QuickPost recognizes the accounts already on your device, so no additional setup is required”

Where did the idea come from?
The idea of QuickPost came from the legacy BlackBerry OS, what we once knew as ‘social feeds’, and the ability to update your status across multiple social networks at once. This was one of my favourite features on my BlackBerry Bold 9900 and I knew I wasn’t alone.

How long did it take to develop the app?
QuickPost started as a small one page application with very little design and just the ability to post text to BBM, Facebook and Twitter. After showing a few other BlackBerry enthusiasts what I was using it was clear there was a demand for the product and we developed a more polished version for public use in August 2013. QuickPost has been updated many times over the last two years to include a long list of unique features and refinements making a great user experience for BlackBerry users around the world.

Who are your ideal customers?
Our ideal customers would be anyone using social media on BlackBerry 10, who want to share across multiple social networks without having to open each app individually. We have a wide range of customers in all different demographics all over the world. You can connect with other QuickPost users on twitter by searching ‘#QuickPost’.

Why should customers buy your app?
QuickPost offers the native BlackBerry 10 experience, and recognizes the accounts already on the device so no additional setup is required. You can share text, edit and upload photos, share what you’re listening to, and even backup a copy of your message or image to BlackBerry Remember. QuickPost works with a long list of native and third party applications making QuickPost your ‘one stop for social sharing’.

Well, Danny Wong, a very prolific BlackBerry developer (we discussed another app developed by his company back in May), came up with a very cool app that allows you to password-protect some key applications on your phone. In particular, AppLock allows you to password-protect the BlackBerry Hub, the SMS app, Calendar, Contacts, the phone app and BlackBerry Assistant.

This gives you an additional level of flexibility and allows you, for example, to give your phone to another person (to use an app, for example), but preventing them from accessing your private data or making phone calls.

As usual, we asked Danny a few questions to know more about his app.

“AppLock is designed to password protect some BlackBerry® apps, the BlackBerry® Hub™, Text Message, Contacts, Calendar, Assistant and Phone applications from unauthorized access.”

Where did the idea come from?
We had a similar AppLock application for the BlackBerry OS 7. It wasn’t possible on BlackBerry 10 to lock applications until a good friend Roger Leblanc showed it could be done. Thanks Roger!!! [NOTE: Roger is another great developer from our dev community and Enterprise Developer Group Manager in Montreal, you can find him on Twitter]

How long did it take to develop the app?
Since Roger have done most of the R&D work it only took us one week to design and complete the AppLock application.

Who are your ideal customers?
AppLock is for everyone. The use cases are different from user to user. Some users just want to lock the BlackBerry Hub and others just want to lock the Phone application. For parents who let their children use their BlackBerrys. You need AppLock.

Why should customers buy your app?
If your BlackBerry is unlocked and someone picks it up they have access to all your apps. AppLock gives you another layer of security in protecting your information and investment. If you worry about your information then AppLock is the perfect tool. Also, by locking the Phone application AppLock can prevent miss dialing if you have your phone in your pocket.

If you want even more security for your BlackBerry Smartphone, get AppLock now!

Together with this app, as usual, we are recommending a few other applications. Here are another five great apps for this week:

Missed the previous episodes? Check them out to discover more high-quality apps for your BlackBerry!

]]>http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/06/this-week-in-blackberry-world-applock/feed/0bbworldlogolfilighedduapplockThis Week In BlackBerry World: CascaRunhttp://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/06/this-week-in-blackberry-world-cascarun/
http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/06/this-week-in-blackberry-world-cascarun/#commentsMon, 08 Jun 2015 13:00:55 +0000http://devblog.blackberry.com/?p=19908/ Read More]]>Any active runner/biker out there? If those (and more) sports are part of your daily routine, this is definitely an app you should have on your BlackBerry. Well, it’s actually much more than that, since CascaRun is a full-featured sport tracking utility developed by Benoit Walter, a member of our developer community in Germany who invested a lot of time to make this app the best in its category.

CascaRun works very well for running, biking, hiking, skiing, skating, driving and more and provides real-time monitoring of distance, time, lap, current/avg speed, pace, heart rate, calories, altitude, elevation and much more.

Now, let’s learn more about CascaRun, we asked Benoit a few questions.

“CascaRun is a native Sports Tracking application which provides a user-friendly and powerful way to monitor and review your sport activities”

Where did the idea come from?
The existing sports trackers did not fill our expectations and we decided to develop an app which delivers truly accurate results and at the same time respects the user privacy. As we, as users, really needed the app, our motivation was high!

How long did it take to develop the app?
It took almost 3 years too reach the current state: while the original goals (accuracy & privacy) still belong to our main focus, we also added much more features like advanced statistics, high-quality audio-feedback feedback and a secure, easy to use web portal.

Who are your ideal customers?
Our ideal customers are also the most demanding ones: they look for the most important details (performance, quality, privacy) before looking at the fancy ones. It seems that it matches the typical BlackBerry user quite well.

Why should customers buy your app?
The commercial app delivers more functionalities for demanding users (like heart rate monitoring, audio-feedback, altitude profile, and more). People should buy the app to get the full experience and enjoy‎ the full configurability. Additionally, the app is ad-free and each purchase helps us to stick too our philosophy: 0% ads, 100% privacy.

Missed the previous episodes? Check them out to discover more high-quality apps for your BlackBerry!

]]>http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/06/this-week-in-blackberry-world-cascarun/feed/0bbworldlogolfilighedducascarunThis Week In BlackBerry World – Follow Mailhttp://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/06/this-week-in-blackberry-world-follow-mail/
http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/06/this-week-in-blackberry-world-follow-mail/#commentsMon, 01 Jun 2015 13:00:55 +0000http://devblog.blackberry.com/?p=19879/ Read More]]>Emails are the main tool I use for my job, period. During my career I realized that there are lots of different ways to manage the huge amount of emails you receive every day and in the past I have used many tools to make that process even better.

Follow Mail is definitely one of the tools that make that process a lot better! For example, think of sending lots of emails to different people and not receiving any response. How many times you forget to followup? What about a tool that reminds you when it’s a good time to followup if someone hasn’t replied to your important email yet? This is one of the many options this app makes available, definitely a huge improvement to your daily job.

Follow Mail is developed by one of our developer Elites, Shashwat Pradhan, and for sure it’s one of the utilities everyone should have on their BlackBerry. He and his company Emberify have developed lots of great apps for BlackBerry, I recommend to check them out.

Together with this app, as usual, we are recommending three other applications. Here are our selection this week:

“Follow Mail allows you to create Follow Ups, Notifications and also Fast Read emails. Follow Mail works complimentary to the Hub, providing the best email experience.”

Where did the idea come from?
Working with people in the sales team. They needed an efficient way follow up to emails. The same idea works great for everyone even normal consumers.

How long did it take to develop the app?
This app took 3 months to develop by our team at Emberify. It has been in continuous development since its launch, we just released its version 4. So you can say over 6 months now.

Who are your ideal customers?
Every user that wants to manage his/her email more efficiently and be more productive with their time. For enterprises, sales, marketing and executives are ideal customers.

Why should customers buy your app?
Follow Mail saves our users time and is reliable in making sure the user follows up with emails. Since BlackBerry users have a busy work schedule and time is of the utmost importance, Follow Mail makes it worth customers to buy. Its email notifications and fast read feature add to its value. Even enterprise users find Follow Mail efficient since it syncs with the work mail. We have over 65,000 happy users of Follow Mail too!

Missed the previous episodes? Check them out to discover more high-quality apps for your BlackBerry!

For those of you who are regular followers of this blog, you should be aware of a program we have been running for a few years now called the “BlackBerry Elite Program”.

The BlackBerry Elite Program is an exclusive invitation-only program for passionate advocates who demonstrate an exceptional and vocal commitment to BlackBerry products and the brand. They lead the charge by interacting with others and sharing their knowledge within their own social networks to help create positive sentiment that positively influences wider opinion about the brand and BlackBerry’s solutions.

While BlackBerry Elites are not financially compensated, they are rewarded for supporting the brand and interacting on BlackBerry’s behalf. Elites receive special incentives for participation in the program, such as pre-release information about new products and services, special access to conferences, direct contact with important customers and various other benefits, including (of course!) a brand new BlackBerry device.

Participation in the BlackBerry Elite Program is offered by invitation to select individuals and every year we invite new members to the program, those whom we think could really help us achieve our goals. There are a few segments (Social, Customer, Support and Developer) and one of them is the Developer segment, made up of key developers who are contributing to the growth of the company and who bring new fresh and high quality content to BlackBerry World.

That being said, when we launched BBM Channels, many of our BlackBerry Elites started leveraging this new medium to get in touch with other BlackBerry enthusiasts, customers, developers and so on. For many other BlackBerry users/customers/developers/fans a BlackBerry Elite is someone to follow, to listen to and to learn from. So why not “certify” that those BBM channels are run and maintained by members of a community that is very important for BlackBerry?

For this reason, we have granted the “Verified” status to any active BBM Channels that are focused on topics relevant to the BlackBerry community, run by BlackBerry Elites and, possibly, with more than 100 subscribers. The “Verified” badge is usually used to show subscribers that the owner of a certain channel is really what/who someone expects to be and helps avoid impersonation. That badge is usually used for big enterprises, very influential people, public figures and so on. We think our BlackBerry Elites are as important as public figures, aren’t they? :)

Here are five BBM channels run by our BlackBerry Developer Elites that we recommend to follow (and are now “Verified”):

Maker of the popular app Quick Post, another Elite I highly recommend to follow

I hope you’ll enjoy these channels and in the following weeks we are going to recommend more high quality channels run by our developer Elites, definitely a new and important source of information you should follow closely. Please stay tuned!

]]>http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/05/blackberry-elite-a-new-benefit-for-you/feed/0main piclfiligheddumain picmarcoemberifynemorys4bbpatwallaceThis Week In BlackBerry World – Ultimate Backuphttp://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/05/this-week-in-blackberry-world-ultimate-backup/
http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/05/this-week-in-blackberry-world-ultimate-backup/#commentsMon, 25 May 2015 13:00:59 +0000http://devblog.blackberry.com/?p=19834/ Read More]]>Usually, when you are going to move from one BlackBerry to another, you want to make sure not to lose any data on you BlackBerry smartphone as well as having the ability to easily restore it to the new device. For this reason you need to find a good backup solution that can really save anything you have on your device, from multimedia files to call logs.

Ultimate Backup, developed by some members of our Developer Community in India, could be the perfect solution for this task. The number of features it provides is impressive, definitely much better than other solutions available in the market.

Together with this app, as usual, we are promoting three other applications. Here are our selection this week:

Space TV: a great app to stay up to date on everything from Astrophysics and Astronomy

“Ultimate Backup is an all in one Backup Solution for the BlackBerry 10 devices. It comes with AES256 encryption, backup to multiple clouds at the same time and many more ! The application also comes with password protection to prevent unauthorized access.”

Where does the idea come from?
From the customers. We have always listened to the requests and ideas from the customers. We implemented all features that our customers requested us. As a result of this, we were able to build an application that met the requirements of end users.

How long did it take to develop the app?
It took us 1 year to develop the application with all those useful features.

Who are your ideal customers?
General users as well as the Business users.

Why should our customers buy your app?
“Because data is the most precious thing in the smartphone.
It’s crucial to protect it. And to protect one’s data or the organization’s data, it is important to implement a data backup and recovery solution. Backing up files and Critical system components can protect against accidental loss of user data, database corruption, hardware failures, thefts and even natural disasters.“ The application “Ultimate Backup for BlackBerry 10” is the best solution to backup and Protect the data using Encryption. It can keep backup of Files, folders and all critical system components including the Contacts, SMS, Calendar, Pin messages, Call Logs ,Emails, Remember entries and many more. It safeguards the data in case of breakdown, thefts and accidental deletion. It could save great amounts of time as well as ensure that the data is secure in the case of disaster.

If anyone is looking to have the entire phone’s data backed up and protected, Ultimate backup for BlackBerry 10 is a one stop solution for him. Highly recommended! Get it now on BlackBerry World.

Missed the previous episodes? Check them out to discover more high-quality apps for your BlackBerry!

]]>http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/05/this-week-in-blackberry-world-ultimate-backup/feed/0bbworldlogolfilighedduultimateThis Week In BlackBerry World – TextSpeech Translatehttp://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/05/this-week-in-blackberry-world-textspeech-translate/
http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/05/this-week-in-blackberry-world-textspeech-translate/#commentsMon, 18 May 2015 13:00:25 +0000http://devblog.blackberry.com/?p=19748/ Read More]]>Global travelers, students, teachers, business owners, professionals but also anyone who deals with people from other countries, understand very well how a “translator” to keep in your smartphone could be a very useful companion.

For this reason this week we would like to tell you more about TextSpeech Translate, an new app “made in Canada” and developed by a member of our developer community, that allows you to translate anything in over 30 different languages.

Together with this app, as usual, we are promoting three other applications. Here are our selection this week:

“Text Speech Translate can speak any text that you type or speak a text file in any of the supported languages (over 30). Text Speech Translate can also translate words or text from one language to another language.”

Where does the idea come from?
The idea came from our Power Tools application. Power Tools has a feature where it will read the incoming email and text message automatically. There are many of times where I want to save the speech to a mp3 file and there isn’t a solution anywhere to be found. The language translation was added because many language translation apps do not support speech or it does not allow to save to mp3 file. With our application you can easily save the translated text or email to a mp3 file for sharing, teaching or for reference. Also our application is integrated with the BlackBerry Hub so that you can easily speak and convert a email message, text file or any text that you can copy from websites, documents, ebooks or any text.

How long did it take to develop the app?
Most of the codes are reused from the Power Tools application. The language translation feature took about couple of days to code. The development cycle took about a week.

Who are your ideal customers?
Our application is for everyone. Some users might just want to convert their email message or text file to mp3 or have the application read the message. Some might use the application to learn other languages. There many other use cases for the application.

Why should our customers buy your app?
Learning and teaching a new language is not easy but with our application it will help you to learn a new language easier and to better communicate with people around you. Also by purchasing the application it will help us improve the application and write more BlackBerry 10 Native applications.

During my first year at BlackBerry, I worked in the Developer Evangelism team in EMEA and mostly took care of south-east Europe, including part of the Balkans.

At that time I discovered that Slovenia was the home country of many prolific mobile app developers and during one of our hackathons we organized over there, I had the pleasure and honor to meet with Roman Verhovšek (@pronicapps on Twitter) for the first time.

Roman’s experience with Mobile Phones starts back in 1999, when he started developing with J2ME (his first project was an email client used in some phones released at that time). After a few years working for some companies like Si.mobil (second largest operator in Slovenia) and Mobitel (largest mobile operator in Slovenia) he had the luck to receive a BlackBerry PlayBook and a BlackBerry Torch.

This was the first time he switched from Java to another development language, in this case to ActionScript and HTML5. At that time he participated in different contests and offers. For example, he was the second runner-up in the BlackBerry Developer Challenge 2011 (EMEA region – ActionScript). One of the rewards was the BlackBerry Dev Con conference in Amsterdam which he attended. After that, he began visiting BlackBerry events in Amsterdam, Milan, Maribor and Orlando.

Before visiting BlackBerry Jam in Milan, Roman put together a group of developers who were BlackBerry lovers as well and the local BlackBerry Developer Group was born. Eight members visited the event in Milan and in the following year, 12 visited members visited the big event in Amsterdam. For a small country like Slovenia, their group members developed a substantial number of apps. At that time, Roman was already switching to C++, which was his favorite language when developing apps for OS/2 in his student times.

At the same time, Roman came in contact with Rok Rupnik, PhD, a professor at the University of Ljubljana. In 2012/2013 and 2013/2014, they lectured students about Cascades development in his class. In 2013, the faculty, BlackBerry and their developer group organized the hackathon in Ljubljana I mentioned at the beginning of this post. A great success!

Roman is now ‘BlackBerry Certified Builder for Native Application Development’ and so far he has developed over a hundred mobile apps for different platforms, in Java, C/C++ with Qt/Cascades, HTML5/JavaScript and ActionScript.

Last year their developer group evolved into an enterprise group and their main focus is now development of enterprise applications. For example, two of his popular apps are PRISM Break SecureEmail and Secure Pictures, focusing on enterprise security. Both carry the ‘Built for BlackBerry’ designation. He also founded Pronic Apps, a startup company dedicated to developing apps and mobile solutions for enterprises.

Interested in learning more about our Enterprise Developer Groups? Do you want to join one? Take a look here to find the one closest to you. If you are interested in starting a new one, instead, please fill in this form and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

]]>http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/05/enterprise-developer-groups-spotlight-roman-verhovsek/feed/0Roman_piclfilighedduRoman_picpic2This Week in BlackBerry World – Only Screenshotshttp://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/05/this-week-in-blackberry-world-only-screenshots/
http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/05/this-week-in-blackberry-world-only-screenshots/#commentsMon, 11 May 2015 13:00:40 +0000http://devblog.blackberry.com/?p=19713/ Read More]]>How many screenshots do you take on your BlackBerry? Well, there are some users who take lots of screenshots and the main problem is that they can’t easily filter a screenshot from the rest of their image library. This week on BlackBerry World we are featuring a very cool app that solves this problem: Only Screenshots.

Together with that, as usual, we are featuring three other great applications. Here are our picks this week:

Only Screenshots has been developed by our Developer Elite Gyubok Baik, aka Qbo, a very prolific member of our developer community. You can find more apps from Qbo here.

“Use Only Screenshots to view/manage your screenshots. Handy tool for people who constantly take screenshots on their phones.”

Where does the idea come from?
Like many other BlackBerry 10 users, I take a lot of photos but I also take lot of screenshots of a website to quickly share with my friends and family. Photos and screenshots serve two distinct purposes and over time, I noticed that my gallery was filling up with mixture of those two. I wanted a solution to separate the photos and screenshots and view them in a pleasant manner.

How long did it take to develop the app?
The Only Screenshots app is rather a simple app (Editor’s note: for a great dev like him!). From start to finish (including design), it took merely 2 hours.

Who are your ideal customers?
Anyone who is looking for a simple, fast way to view and manage only screenshots.

Why should our customers buy your app?
The app is free to download and completely free to use (no in-app purchasable items). So why wouldn’t you download my app :)

Missed the previous episodes? Check them out to discover more high-quality apps for your BlackBerry!

]]>http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/05/this-week-in-blackberry-world-only-screenshots/feed/0bbworldlogolfilighedduappworld.blackberry.comThis Week in BlackBerry World – Chromatic Tunerhttp://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/05/this-week-in-blackberry-world-chromatic-tuner/
http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/05/this-week-in-blackberry-world-chromatic-tuner/#commentsMon, 04 May 2015 19:00:26 +0000http://devblog.blackberry.com/?p=19661/ Read More]]>Did you know that lots of musicians are also BlackBerry users? It seems that one of our developers noticed that, too, reason why for our weekly appointment with some great apps featured on the BlackBerry World Carousel, we will focus on an app every musician should have in their BlackBerry smartphone: “Chromatic Tuner“.

Of course, it’s not the only app developed by a member of our developer communities that we are featuring this week. Here are our picks:

Chromatic Tuner has been developed by one of our Enterprise Developer Group managers in Austria, Andre Pura (and his company, Mappau). Here are some insights about this very useful app (and yes, I am a musician too!).

“Whether it is a guitar, violin, trombone or any other instrument, just play the note you want to tune and Chromatic Tuner will show you if and how much it differs from the correct pitch”

Where does the idea come from?
The idea to develop Chromatic Tuner rose in a pub in Graz, Austria. We saw some musicians, having trouble calibrating their instruments with an old fashion tuner. Uwe, Peter and I discussed, if it is possible to develop a tuner for a mobile phone, which detects frequencies automatially.

How long did it take to develop the app?
We developed the algorithms for detecting the frequencies in about 3-4 days and our designer was busy for some days until the final design was born. The process from planing to the market took about 2 weeks, including testing on different devices (editor’s note: this tells you a lot about how easy it is to develop and bring apps to the market on BlackBerry 10).

What are your ideal customers?
Our ideal customer provides feedback to us. We try to stay connected to different musicians and other customers to provide the best user experience.

Why should our customers buy your app?
The outstanding design combined with the algorithms in the application provides an easy to use user experience. You do not need to carry your analog chromatic tuner, you already have a digital in your BlackBerry 10 Phone!

Missed the previous episodes? Check them out to discover more high-quality apps for your BlackBerry!

]]>http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/05/this-week-in-blackberry-world-chromatic-tuner/feed/0bbworldlogolfiligheddutunerThis Week in BlackBerry World – Episode 6http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/04/this-week-in-blackberry-world-episode-6/
http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/04/this-week-in-blackberry-world-episode-6/#commentsMon, 27 Apr 2015 13:00:07 +0000http://devblog.blackberry.com/?p=19537/ Read More]]>Here we are with the sixth episode of this (popular) series of blog posts aimed at recommending some great applications developed by key members of our developer communities worldwide. As usual, these applications will be featured on the BlackBerry World carousel this week and you will see some tweets by @BlackBerryDev recommending to download these apps.

Given that we already featured Foko on another blog post, this week we would like to ask Mitja Dragman, developer of Public Bikes and key member of our Enterprise Developer Group in Slovenia, a few questions.

“Public Bikes provides you with number of available bikes and number of free docks. Maps and navigation to the selected station are also a feature of “Public Bikes” app. Available for users of public bicycles all over the world! More than 170 cities to choose from.”

Where does the idea come from?
The idea for Public Bikes sprung from my personal need. I wanted to know how many bikes are available at the bike station near my home as I was still at home or walking out the door and not just until I saw empty slots with my eyes. If I had had an app I wouldn’t waste my time walking to a vacant bike station, would you? Thinking about creating most of my app starts with two questions: “would I use it?” and “would it help make other’s lives easier?” The decision is simple if you think of it like that. Useful app, happy users.

How long did it take to develop the app?
Since I already have a few apps on BlackBerry world, among them one that is already with Build for BlackBerry, development of this app was really a smooth fast process. It took me approximately 3 weeks to make it.

What are your ideal customers?
Anyone who uses public bike transportation and is annoyed by not knowing how many bikes are left.

Why should our customers buy your app?
Because, let’s be honest, these days time is money. Loosing time walking to a station with no bikes can cost you more than half an hour to get to the next station. And no one wants to be late for work.

]]>http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/04/this-week-in-blackberry-world-episode-6/feed/0bbworldlogolfiligheddupubikesThis Week in BlackBerry World – Episode 5http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/04/this-week-in-blackberry-world-episode-5/
http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/04/this-week-in-blackberry-world-episode-5/#commentsMon, 20 Apr 2015 13:00:22 +0000http://devblog.blackberry.com/?p=19533/ Read More]]>Another week, another group of great apps for your BlackBerry 10 device. As usual, you will find these apps on the main BlackBerry World Carousel this week and our @BlackBerryDev Twitter account will tweet about them during the coming week.

This week we have a few very high quality apps and, to be honest, chosing the one to feature on this blog has been a very difficult task. Let’s start with the list:

The app we would like to highlight this week is Secure Picture. I really love the idea of having an app that protects any media file contained in my BlackBerry device, so we asked the developer Roman Verhovsek a few questions. Roman (@sivko2) works at Pronic Apps and he is based in Slovenia, Europe. I had the pleasure to meet him two years ago during one of the stops of our BlackBerry Jam tour.

Where does the idea come from?
The idea for Secure Pictures sprung from the celebrity nude photos hack in August 2014 which uncovered the vulnerability of storing data in clouds. So we came up with an app that offers security to anyone who wants to protect their photos, videos and voice recordings, particularly those stored in cloud.

How long did it take to develop the app?
As BlackBerry’s Silver Enterprise Partner, we are invested in developing enterprise apps with a particular focus on security since we recognize it as BlackBerry’s main advantage in the mobile world. Development of this particular app took us merely a month, since we re-used the code from PRISM Break Secure Email, our own solution for secure email exchange. PRISM Break Secure Email is also suitable for businesses so it served as an excellent basis for Secure Pictures. Both apps are ‘Built for BlackBerry’ approved. The same code will also be reused in our next mobile solution for managing business processes on the IBM BPM platform.

What are your ideal customers?
Anyone who wishes to protect their photographs, videos and voice recordings, ranging from private individuals to business professionals who can use the app on a company level.

Why should our customers buy your app?
To protect sensitive material from prying eyes and ears, as well as from hackers. The material protected by Secure Pictures can only be opened in this app and with a secure password. The app can also be used by a group of people (e.g. friends or co-workers) sharing the same password. We are happy to see Secure Pictures is receiving excellent reviews. This reinsures us that we are on the right track in developing secure enterprise apps for BlackBerry 10 devices and gives us priceless information to be used in the development of our mobile solution for managing business processes on the IBM BPM platform.

If you are looking for a way to protect any media file on your BlackBerry device, Secure Picture looks like a great solution, so please go and get your copy on BlackBerry World now.

Missed the previous episodes? Check them out to discover more high-quality apps for your BlackBerry:

Michael Muth (@QtHelex on Twitter) is one of the top members of our developer community, member of an enterprise developer group in Germany and, last but not least, one of our Developer Elites.

The interesting fact, though, is that unlike some other developers we featured on this blog in the past few weeks, he is not a long time BlackBerry developer nor a long-time BlackBerry user and abuser. He got to know BlackBerry just before the launch of BlackBerry 10 and, literally, it’s been love at first sight. :)

As Michael told me, he started developing apps driven only by passion.

“I had a shiny new Smartphone, an expensive Dreambox satellite receiver in the living room and searched for a solution to change the channels or pause a recording from the bedroom late in the evening without the need to buy a second Dreambox.”

This was during the time when a different big mobile company owned the development framework Qt which was already established on desktop and especially in the Embedded Devices industry. During these the fundament was created to build extremely resource friendly and powerful mobile Apps based on Qt, C++ and JavaScript for nearly every mobile platform.

“At this point I had published several apps already, made a name within the community, my projects were supported by some really huge companies like Intel, I became Qt Ambadassor, won several coding competitions and invested about 2 years to refresh my C++ knowledge from my studies and to learn the insides of Qt.”

As many other developers, his love for BlackBerry 10 started during one of the BlackBerry Jam events we organized back in 2012 and 2013. After he talked to some members of the developer relations team and heard about the plans for BlackBerry 10 and QNX, he finally decided where the new home for all his apps was: BlackBerry!

I asked Michael why he found the story about BlackBerry 10 “extremely convincing” (as he told me):

“The most important part? You have chosen Qt as your native main framework! QML (QtQuick) Design Language was adapted and redesigned by BlackBerry as the new Cascades Language to fit exactly the needs of the new platform. You see, I select the platform I develop for thoughtful, by passion and technical aspects.”

After switching to BlackBerry, he felt to be again one small developer out of many and he had to start building his reputation from scratch again. Michael worked very hard and thanks to the support of blogs, other developers or simply enthusiast members of the BlackBerry community (some of them, for example, helped him translate his apps into other languages) his apps got the deserved popularity and, last but not least, he was selected to be part of the Developer Elite community, something he is very proud of (don’t tell anyone, but I picked his name… and I am very proud of that!).

One of the most important results of the process described above, is that he is getting more and more requests to develop apps for companies as commissional work, projects that he selects very carefully. Michael told me he wants to make sure he loves the ideas behind those projects in order to be able to work on them with the same passion he put in his most popular apps like ClipMan, BlackBullet or BaSA.

If you liked this success story, please take a look at the previous ones, too:

Interested to know more about our Enterprise Developer Groups? Do you want to join one? Take a look here to find the one closest to you. If you are interested in starting a new one, instead, please fill this form and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

]]>http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/04/enterprise-developer-groups-spotlight-michael-muth/feed/0michaelmuthlfiligheddumichaelmuthThis Week in BlackBerry World – Episode 3http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/04/this-week-in-blackberry-world-episode-3/
http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/04/this-week-in-blackberry-world-episode-3/#commentsMon, 06 Apr 2015 19:00:08 +0000http://devblog.blackberry.com/?p=19443/ Read More]]>Here we are with another blog post to showcase four great applications developed by top members of our developer communities. We have some amazing apps this week, I highly recommend to check them out.

Among the four apps above, Bolt Fast Reader really caught my attention. Consuming a lot of information on your device (news, emails, documents etc.) is usually a task that could take a lot of time, in particular if you are a business professional or work for an enterprise and need to go through lots of emails or documents.

Bolt Fast Reader has been developed by Refocus Technologies, an indian company that has developed lots of high quality apps for BlackBerry.

“ Bolt is the best way to engage with content in the digital age. The app delivers a completely focused reading experience and helps readers get their content faster – with less effort and across any device or screen size keeping the BlackBerry 10 experience in mind”

We asked Puneet Kohli, one the members of ReFocus Technologies, a few questions to know more about the app.

Where does the idea come from?
We got the idea when we ourselves faced the problem of reading slowly on our mobiles. As avid readers, we always noticed that reading a novel is much faster on paperback than on the mobile. A lot of research has been done in the field of fast reading for mobile, and we decided to build a fast reader for BlackBerry 10. Our main focus was ease of use and functionality.

How long did it take to develop the app?
Bolt took around 2 months total, including the time taken for research, design and algorithm development.

What are your ideal customers?
Ideally we would like Bolt to be used by enterprise users. That would include people that get long emails they need to read through quickly, lawyers that have big legal documents to read, and just people who want to get done with the reading and get into the actual action required.
It’s a great app to have even for regular BlackBerry users, wherein a novel, mail or small document can be read easily.

Why should our customers buy your app?
Bolt is beautifully designed with ease of use in mind. Users can directly share text to Bolt, and instantly get it read in the fast reader mode. Time is of essence, and that’s what we’re saving here.

]]>http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/04/this-week-in-blackberry-world-episode-3/feed/0bbworldlogolfilighedduBoltFastReaderThis week in BlackBerry World – Episode 2http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/03/this-week-in-blackberry-world-episode-2/
http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/03/this-week-in-blackberry-world-episode-2/#commentsMon, 30 Mar 2015 12:47:13 +0000http://devblog.blackberry.com/?p=19405/ Read More]]>Last week we kicked off a new program to provide more visibility to some very high-quality applications developed by key members of our developer community.

The results have been very positive so far and for this reason we are very happy to continue this initiative for this week as well.

Here are the apps featured on the carousel this week, developed either by one of our Developer Elites or from a member of our Enterprise Developer Groups:

Like last week, we would like to focus on one of those apps and ask the developer some insights on how the app was developed, where the idea came from and so on.

This week, the app we would like to feature is “Work Wide” developed by one of our Developer Elites, Brian Scheirer (@brianscheirer), together with another dev, Olaf Hanson (@olaf_d), both based in US.

“ Work Wide is specifically designed to allow for maximum productivity on your BlackBerry Passport. Using the wide screen, Work Wide lets you have two “apps” side by side.
It has a built in Web Browser, Composer, Calculator, Picture Viewer, and Txt Viewer.”

We asked Brian a few questions.

Where does the idea come from?
Originally Work Wide was exclusive to the Passport because while watching the launch event it dawned on me that I could provide a really unique experience to Passport owners with an app that utilizes its unique form factor. The idea to expand support to other devices was purely due to popular demand.

How long did it take to develop the app?
The version that is released today is the result of 2 developers (myself and Olaf Hanson) working continuously since Oct 2014. The beauty of this type of app is we can indefinitely add more integration and features as long as there is user interest.

What are your ideal customers?
Work Wide’s target audience is much the same as BlackBerry as a whole target audience. We want to help people who want to “get things done”. And with Work Wide we hope to create a natural extension to the BlackBerry experience with different take on the multitasking workflow.

Why should our customers buy your app?
First off there is nothing else like Work Wide in BlackBerry World. Second as I said above, we are catering to what BlackBerry users want: multitasking, efficiency, and productivity. And more to that point, Work Wide hopes to push the limits of what it means to do things like multitasking with a wide variety of use cases.

“Work Wide is developed by two passionate BlackBerry developers who have also been BlackBerry device users (by choice) for many years. We are both very excited about what we’ve created so far and plan to continue our development efforts on this app for the foreseeable future.”

Edgar, @turco82 on Twitter, started working closely with BlackBerry since the launch of our first BlackBerry Tech Center in St. Luis, Argentina, where he also founded his first developer group. Through the Tech Center, they started helping local developers and local companies in Argentina to build apps for BlackBerry 10.

At that time, they also started working for a Japanese company for which they built an app called Tazzle it. It’s a service that allows you to quickly share and print content between a smartphone and a PC, through a USB dongle. It’s being used by many companies worldwide and Edgar and his developer group still support that service, but are also busy with some other projects both in the business and consumer market.

Among the others, for example, now that the Amazon Appstore is included in any BlackBerry device, they are helping some local companies to bring their games to that store, but they have also been busy developing the client applications for the social networking site Score and for some other enterprise customers.

It’s great to see passionate developers like Edgar at work, building something very important for their community and for BlackBerry. They have been able to catch lots of opportunities around the BlackBerry platform for over three years, both in Argentina and for other companies abroad and for this reason this definitely makes them a great success story worth sharing.

If you liked this success story, please take a look at the previous ones, too:

Interested to know more about our Enterprise Developer Groups? Do you want to join one? Take a look here to find the one closest to you. If you are interested in starting a new one, instead, please fill this form and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

]]>http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/03/enterprise-developer-groups-spotlight-edgar-glellel/feed/0edgar1lfilighedduedgar1edgar2This Week in BlackBerry World – Episode 1http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/03/this-week-in-blackberry-world-episode-1/
http://devblog.blackberry.com/2015/03/this-week-in-blackberry-world-episode-1/#commentsMon, 23 Mar 2015 14:00:45 +0000http://devblog.blackberry.com/?p=19380/ Read More]]>Every week we use to highlight a series of applications on the BlackBerry World carousel. These apps could differ from region to region, but some of them are the same and are developed by a member of our developer communities.

Here are this week’s apps featured on the carousel, developed either by one of our Developer Elites or from a member of our Enterprise Developer Groups:

Starting this week, we are going to feature one of those apps on this blog in order to know more about the developer and to get some insights on where the idea for the app came from.

This week, the app we would like to feature is “My Accountant” from Ideal Apps, a team whose our Developer Elite Morten Lindstrom in Trinidad de Tobago is part of.

“MyAccountant is your personal finance tracker for BlackBerry® 10. A handy, simple and quick way to track your cash flow.”

We asked the developer, Ideal Apps, a few questions.

Where does the idea come from?
The idea came from our personal needs of having an easy and handy way to control our expenses and income.
Once we created the main core of the app we looked for other features that could be helpful as well, like budgets and example reports

How long did it take to develop the app?
The initial development for the main core of the app took around 3 months full time job by our team of developers at IDEAL APPS..
After that, we have added improvements and new features, including some functions requested by our users, a process that is still ongoing.

What are your ideal customers?
Our ideal customers are professionals and consumers who want to organize their finances and have a control of their cash flow in a secure and private way, and always have the numbers available wherever they go (with their phone).

Why should our customers buy your app?
We believe that MyAccountant is a useful tool for controlling personal finances through a BlackBerry device, and it has many features that makes it stand out in its class of apps.

• It is specifically designed for BlackBerry users who need data privacy and data security.
• It is used by thousands of satisfied users, worldwide
• It includes unique tools to alleviate the data input, such as the quick transactions, which is a way to store transactions with a single tap,
• and also the powerful recurring rule mechanism for automating repeated payments and income.

“We are very happy to see the many reviews in BlackBerry World, speaking loud about the support and the quick responses from our support team. As developers this is very heartwarming feedback, after all the hard work we have been putting into the development of MyAccountant. It is good to see so many satisfied users. Our plans for the future include new enhancements in various fields such as data syncing between BlackBerry devices.”

With BlackBerry 10.3, apps are allowed to change the theme within the app. By this users may choose a light or dark theme based on their visual preference or use case of the app.

One of the biggest way apps can innovate today is by making them context aware. Based on the principle of Sense, Understand and Adapt. At Emberify our latest app Follow Mail brings in the concept of the Adaptive theme. Follow Mail allows users to set follow ups for the emails they send out or even reminders to important replies. We also integrated Follow Mail with Turbo Reader using an invocation. The app involves users going through their email. Initially we started out with a dark theme. Many users requested to also allow to choose the light theme so they can use it outdoors or when there are too many lights. To take this one step forward we built the Adaptive theme for Follow Mail.

Using the ambient light sensor we sense what’s the environment brightness level. With the light level value we check if it isn’t on the edge or fluctuating using a simple timer. Then according to this we adapt the theme to light or dark. By using adaptive theme, Follow Mail can detect you are indoor in a dark room and automatically switch to a dark user interface. Next morning, you are heading to office, Follow Mail will switch to a bright one.

A simple step in making an application context aware allowed us to really enhance the user experience. It also got great feedback from our users.

Users have found this very useful so we are adding this in our next app Inbox Zero and to all the updates to all our apps at Emberify. We are also sharing the Adaptive Theme sample on request. Do send me an email on shashwat@emberify.com for the sample.